Sunday morning in Zegama, in the Basque Country of northern Spain, dawned chilly (10 degrees Celcius/50 degrees Fahrenheit) and wet (spitting rain), but not enough to dampen the spirits of the Zegama-Aizkorri Maratoia runners. 450 athletes climbed up, up, and up into even colder temperatures and a bit of snow as they crossed four major mountain summits in the Basque Mountains and over 5,400 vertical meters of ascending and descending.

In the men’s race, a group of five men quickly broke from the peloton, solidifying that split by the 13-kilometer point. As they climbed higher, men dropped back until it was just Kilian Jornet, Luis Hernando, and Max King pushing the pace. By the race’s last high point, Max dropped from contention (He finished in 15th place.), leaving it a two-man race between Kilian and Luis. In the end, Kilian descended faster and harder, crossing the finish line more than 4 minutes ahead of Luis. Kilian said that it was, indeed, a cold day on the mountain, though he smiled as he said so. In Max’s absence, Tom Owens filled out the men’s podium.

The ladies race was led out by last year’s winner Oihana Kortázar. From the get go, she rarely relinquished her lead nor relaxed her off-the-front running style. Emelie Forsberg played chase for much of the day, coming through the checkpoints in the first half of the race within a minute or two of Oihana. In the last third of the race, she was overtaken by Nuria Picas and her fierce ability to close a race. Nuria finished second and about 10 minutes back from Oihana with Emelie and a host of other women in hot pursuit. Fourth-place woman Lauren Jeska made a mid-race push into the lead. Her stay at the front, however, was brief. On the long, 10+-kilometer descent out of the mountains and back into Zegama, she couldn’t hold pace and slipped into her final, fourth position.

Meghan Hicks is iRunFar.com's Senior Editor, a Contributing Editor at Trail Runner magazine, and a columnist at Marathon & Beyond. The converted road runner finished her first ultramarathon in 2006 and loves using running to visit the world's wildest places. For more information on Meghan and her adventures, please visit her personal website.All posts by Meghan Hicks

Hi Bryon, thanks a lot for the nice and extensive coverage at Zegama (and Transvulcania). Keep up the good work guys! Congrats to the winners and all the finishers on such a tough race. Maybe I'll try it next year :-)

Roger,
Nick, Joe, and Dakota were a ways back, so I've no real idea on their place. Not easy for me to get those places either.

The weather was cold and wet. Mostly light rain where I was all day with the occasional switch to just drizzle or a more persistent rain. It was snowing at the very top, but definitely liquid rain at 1,000 meters.

Aww man that's to bad with Maxx King I have run with him here in Oregon and hes a true champion! Well I hope hes OK. Congratulations to Kilian to winning this race! I watch your Youtube Videos once a week to get me pumped up :)

Yeah, he mentions that in his last interview. He had done, I think, 3 runs before racing Transvulcania. He was skiing all winter, so he probably kept pretty good conditioning. Still, to be able to run this well before "getting sharp" is mind-boggling.

I think Mike Wolfe's performance was stellar. Max King though, I had picked to finish a lot higher (top 3 atleast) . He got a bit of a whipping in the end. The one thing the likes of Kilian do unbelievably well is descend.

how long was this race? and you mention 5000 meters of climbing? 15,000ft? do we have races in the US that compare? i've heard of some races in alaska that climb a lot but not 15,000ft in a marathon. pikes peak is only 7k or so in a 1/2 marathon so this is like a double climb of PPA?